The Bass King
by BiagioMonkey
Summary: A Chair shot inspired by the King Lion. Set in the future. Expecting his first child, Chuck remembers his own childhood and the relationship with his father.


I've always wanted to write a Chuck's and Bart's shot based on The king Lion story. I've wrote it a few years ago in italian. It is the fist of 4 chapters of a minicollection of Chuck and Blair's moments inspired by the Walt Disney classics. All the collection is set during the last month of Blair's first pregnancy. Let me know what you think!

**The Bass King**

_**Mufasa: Look, Simba. Everything the light touches is our kingdom.**__**  
**__**Simba: **__**Wow.**__**  
**__**Mufasa: **__**A king's time as ruler rises and falls like the sun. One day, Simba, the sun will set on my time here, and will rise with you as the new king.**__**  
**__**Simba: **__**And this'll all be mine?**__**  
**__**Mufasa: **__**Everything.**_

_When he opened his eyes, he realized his father was back. So he ran down the stairs directly to the living room to have breakfast with him. He was happy, he had been waiting for that moment for weeks._

_How long would he have stayed home? He wanted to go to see the Yankees with Him, like Nate usually did with his Father._

_He was wondering what he would have answered this time. If he had to leave again, or go out with all those women that he used to bring home at night and who disappeared in the morning. He always said no and Chuck was used to spend his _

_weekends at home with the housekeepers, or playing videogames in his room._

_His father was never there for him. He was always far away. Sometimes, he didn't even call to know how he was doing. Once, Giulia, his Italian nanny, had told him that they weren't like other people, that his father was a very busy businessman and that working that much had made him become a very powerful man. It was the reasons why he couldn't spend more time with him._

_Even through, sometimes Chuck didn't understand what could be more important than going with him to The Toy Schwartz. He had so many possible ideas how to spend time with his dad, even doing "grown up" things, like buying same purple designed suits, or visiting Wall Street, following the up and downs of their shares. _

_He always remembered when, on the day of his birthday, his father astonished him with the description of the share he had given him as gift._

"_Money makes the world work son. Toys are for stupid kids, born to sit during the board meetings without even knowing what it is, or filling papers with charity events. That's not what you'll be, son. This is your Empire's first mile stone"._

_Chuck didn't really understand what his father was saying but, to him, knowing that he was more clever than the other kids was enough. When he had repeated the same words to his kindergarten friends, they all got bored immediately, and started talking about the latest Superman cartoon._

_Who was still watching that kind of things on the first grade? But he didn't even really care, most of all, when his father had given him a gift for his birthday. The other kids could have candles and happy birthday songs, he had his Empire instead. _

_And it was better because his father said to him "Charles, you are a man! Sentimentalism is for crying little children". _

_Out of doubts, he was everything except a crying little child._

_And then his father was right in front of him. Grey suit, a perfectly knotted tie, straighten back, Financial Times in his hands, an American coffee in front of him, orange juice and a pair of Italian amaretti on the table._

"_Do you think this is the time to wake up, Charles?"- Bart scolded him, without moving his eyes from the stock market pages._

"_There's no school today, father" the little kid answered him, reaching the tables, while the waiter was helping him to sit on the chair without falling in his long blue silk vest._

_His father always made him feel uncomfortable. He wasn't like the other dads, who hugged and comforted their kids when they skinned their knees. His father used to watch him and say "Sentimentalism are for weak, which you're not Charles, aren't you?"._

_Chuck saw his father pulling down the paper and staring at him coldly. A shiver ran down his back. He was angry. Chuck knew that gaze, Bart did it everytime Chuck failed in public or when he had to admonish him. That happened almost every times they met. _

"_I've been told that last week you knocked off another child at the park"_

_How could his father always know everything about him? Who spied him? Giulia? The teacher? They would have paid for that._

"_He stole my Nintendo" he explained, making his point._

"_You are on a punishment" Bart established harshly._

"_It wasn't my fault" Chuck protested. He didn't want to be closed in his bedroom all weekend long. He didn't even want to eat the vegetable soup._

"_It doesn't matter. Since today your nanny is sick, you're coming with me to the Bass Ind."_

"_Can I?" the kid goggled. It wasn't a punishment. He would have spent all the day with his father. No Dallas replays forced to watch with the cook, and no piano lessons with Mrs Williamson. She was full of wrinkles, more than a church during a repair work._

"_Have breakfast! Arthur is coming to pick you up in half an hour"_

"_I'm not with you father?" the hope to enjoy every single minute with his father was too big to be contained._

"_I'll go on my own. Be careful not to create any more problems if you don't want me to take away all of your toys" Bart stood up, he tightened his tie, closed his jacket and left him alone. _

_No hellos, no caresses, no hugs. But didn't matter. It was his first time at his father's office._

"_Mr. Charles, here's your favorite breakfast" his cook placed the tray on the table._

"_Margaret, Today I'm going to dad's office" he told her happily, his caramel eyes wide open and a little smirk on his face._

"_I've heard"- she reached him, kissing his forehead._

"_I'll wear my new yellow bowtie" he ordered, taking his juice. It was his mother's favorite color, his father would have appreciated it._

_The woman smiled sadly. She had never met such a lonely boy._

* * *

_Once, Giulia had brought him to see the high glassy palace where his father worked. They stayed out. It was "a place for grownup and powerful people", she had said to him. _

_Still, Chuck had had a lot of fun standing there, watching people coming in and out from the sliding doors, wearing their perfect suits with leather briefcases like his father's ones. He had wanted one too. No one had been able to appease his whim._

_But that day, he got bored immediately. They left him all day long in a small place next to his father's personal assistance's office. She was fat and scorbutic and obliged him to watch the cartoons and draw. He hated drawing. He hated to be treated like a child._

_He wasn't a child, he was a Bass. His father had told him that, and everything his father said was always right._

_But he didn't see him, neither for lunch._

* * *

"_Where's my son?" Chuck heard his father's voice from the little room. It was 8 pm, he was starving, and he wanted to have a bath in his Jacuzzi so badly. He would had never pushed anyone again at the park. In case, he would had paid someone else to do it._

"_He's in the other room"_

"_Did he behave?"_

"_He has complained about the impossibility to visit the building because of the meetings"_

"_I understand. Get him ready and send him to my office" Chuck heard his father walking away and closing a door behind him._

"_Come in, Charles" Chuck was standing on the big mahogany door._

_It was a huge office with a big desk in the center of the room. His father sat there, writing something. _

_With short steps, Chuck reached him, while his eyes were exploring every centimeter, walls, or things inside the room._

"_This is my office" Bart announced without moving his eyes from the paper on his table._

"_I like it" the little kid answered. He smiled interested and crossed his leg, sitting on the leather chair. He couldn't stop himself from recording every details around him._

"_What have you done today?" his father asked._

"_I've drawn" Chuck answered not hiding the boredom and disgust. _

_His father felt it, but his face didn't make a move._

"_I've been told that you want to look around. What do you say? Do you still want to know your future?"_

"_Can we? Really?" Chuck straighten up on the chair, smiling for the second time of the day._

_He loved immediately that place. The projects in the plastics room, the smell of solid wood in the offices, the paintings on the walls, the rooms set along the aisles, perfectly cleaned up after a stressful busy day. _

_He loved the intimacy that surrounded him while he was visiting the long corridors with the big windows, exposing the view of the city. It was like feeling home, like being born to reach that place, knowing every corners even before viewing them._

_They stopped on the glass roof. He remembered that since Giulia had told him not to ever approach the board because he could have fallen. He had always done the contrary._

_It was night and the city's lights lighted the view. The gentle breeze of the wind, took very far away all the dangerous mix of noises and scents from the streets. _

_His father was looking straight. Stiff shoulders. Static gaze._

"_One day, Charles, All of this, will be yours" Bart ended the silence that had followed them during their little trip at the Bass Ind._

_The kid was looking entranced at the horizon._

"_You'll take my place" Bart looked down to the 2years and half boy who was looking fascinated by the colors in front of him. Bart took his little hands very clumsily._

"_You'll say anyone what to do. You'll be the richest and the most powerful man in New York City" pride lied in his father's words. He was a successful man with the world at his feet._

"_All of this?" Chuck asked, excited at the idea to own that vastness around them._

_Bart nodded, then turned around to watch right in front of him. Chuck imitated his father, he wanted to be as much important as him._

"_Remember son: you're a Bass, a Bass never ask. A Bass takes"_

_That was the first and the last time his father took his hand._

* * *

She turned around in the bed. It was late in the night. She was used to sleep in his arms so she couldn't stop from feeling cold.

"Chuck.." she whispered, opening her eyes and sitting up, uncovering herself.

"I'm here" he answered from the windows.

Blair turned up the light and saw his feet behind the dark curtains that he didn't open not to wake her up. She stood up slowly and came close to him. He was hiding there, messed up hairs and the stare aimed at the world outside.

"Chuck"

He turned his gaze over her. He looked like he had just woken up after a terrible nightmare.

She felt a lump in her throat and hugged him, hiding her nose in his neck, letting each other's scent reassure them.

"I didn't mean to wake you up" Chuck apologized, and moved to catch one of her curls in his fingers.

"We can't sleep anymore without you" she nuzzled his cheek, while throwing her arms around his neck.

His hand came rapidly on her belly, caressing it softly, as he could be able to brake it. Four weeks left. Blair was giving birth to his first heir. Blood of his Blood. The hire of his own father's name.

"Did you dream your father, again?"

He stared at her, leaning down his forehead against hers. He was still surprised about the power of her perfect doll face. She was able to let disappear every wall he would have built up with anybody else.

"I don't want be like him" he was caressing her cheek.

Watching him falling under his insecurity, made her heart aches.

She loved every single part of that man. Despite the huge amounts of mistakes, even the worst ones, he had always been real to her, in the good and bad times. People had told her she was a masochist. That he could only destroy her. That he had a bad influence on her, her one and only way of never-ending pain.

They didn't know anything.

They didn't know that the Chuck she knew, was the most loyal and faithful person she had ever met. He was the only one who had never tried to change her. Every time he had hurt her, he had fought to became better, to be able to deserve her again. He had supported her and goaded her during all the bad times.

He was imperfect, but he was perfect for her. He was the only one worth it, to stand by her site.

She took his face in her hands, forcing him to look into her eyes.

"You're not like him" she was right. Chuck was not like his father, and never would never have been.

"Oh… Did you hear it?" Chuck's attention went directly to her belly.

The little kid had just kicked on her left side, right exactly where Chuck's hand lied. He always kicked when Chuck was around her or started talking. It was like he could feel Chuck, as he could answer him and look for him. And like every single time, Chuck's smile filled her with warmness and tenderness. He looked himself like a child, shining eyes and a future full of life's promises.

"Let's go back to sleep" she walked him back to their bed. Hand in hand.

They climbed it and lied there, embraced like every night.

_**Mufasa: Look at the stars. The great kings of the past look down on us from those stars.**__**  
**__**Simba: **__**Really?**_

_**Mufasa: **__**Yes. So whenever you feel alone, just remember that those kings will always be there to guide you. And so will I.**_


End file.
